


HD The Theorem Arc

by tigersilver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 09:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14446080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersilver/pseuds/tigersilver
Summary: Malfoy meditates on the relativity of things.





	1. Theory of Relativity

_[E=MC_ _2_ _]_

_Theory of Relativity_

Draco waited, fingernails just touching the chill seam of stone block at his back. The nook behind the Humpbacked Witch was not particularly spacious, and certainly not well-lit, so the atmosphere didn't lend itself to a detailed examination of one's companion's expression. As far as he could tell, though, Harry wasn't angry, wasn't impatient and wasn't feeling particularly malicious, snide or standoffish. His voice earlier, claiming Draco's attention after dinner, had not resounded of any of those emotions, but certainly appearances could be deceptive, as Draco knew all too well.

This particular nook led to other places; he'd discovered this early in 6th Year, in Potter's company. There were quite a few 'other places' that Potter had access to, all of which were more or less good for a quick shag. If one didn't mind mould or damp, of course, or spiders. Or claustrophobia or ghosts or a host of meaninglessly rude impedimenta that Draco could now quite firmly state didn't bother him in the slightest. It was all relative, after the smashing experiences he'd enjoyed in his own dungeons, his very brief holiday sojourn in Azkaban and the various 'other places' the Order had deemed as  _safe and well-guarded_  during the Great Horcrux Hunt [most of  _that_  list could not be considered in any way acceptable places for a quick shag by anyone remotely  _human_ , even if he and Potter  _had_  taken advantage of the opportunities variously presented rather more often than not].

'Relative'. That was the word, perhaps, that he needed to define this moment. Relative to the mad fear the Dark Lord inspired, this moment with Harry was rather more terrifying. Relative to the dreamy long-ago mid 6th Year sequences he'd blotted carefully from the levels of his mind for survival's sake, these next few seconds of Potter-action and Malfoy-reaction could be very revealing. Relative to the larger world that rolled on obliviously around them, this moment was likely immaterial, as was  _he_ , Draco Malfoy - as was his ephemeral happiness, something which had never been assured.

Thus, Draco waited, placed in check by a bumbling teenaged past-master of wartime strategy, and fought to keep the annoying hum of his own gut-wrenching anxiety to a low murmur by sheer force of will. Harry's face, in the meantime, had edged a fraction closer, and the pale folds of his eyelids had fallen to half-mast, disguising the brilliance of the green, shading it dark and inviting. Draco wondered frantically what  _that_  Look meant - if it still meant the same things he vaguely half-remembered, or if it was just a prelude to something particularly cutting, which was far more likely,  _now_ , with peace settling warily into the jagged rents left in their world - and when Harry cocked his head a spare millimeter Draco finally noticed that he hadn't been breathing – not for some considerable time, considering how tight his chest was – and wondered if he ever would again.

But his own sharp chin had already nodded downward in mindless reaction to Harry's movement; slowly, so slowly, not in any threatening way, and his own lips had parted slightly, mirroring Harry's chapped ones, and their noses and mended glasses and dark and pale evening stubbles had clearly entered some sort of  _e_ _ntente cordiale_ , so perhaps the stone wall behind Draco would not necessarily be required to become his sole source of strength in the next few moments.

Perhaps it could be Harry's arms, instead. His broad chest and wide shoulders and the still-nobby line of his lengthening spine; the smell of his nape and the taste just behind his ears that was so enchanting; the slide of his hair, silky and wild and windswept even after a hard brushing. His mouth, firm, well-cut and purely intoxicating – if the scraps of Draco's tattered memory still told true – and full of sweet words and honeyed-hot tongue to speak them. His—

Relative. That was the distance between them. And it still remained, and Draco knew it, even with his eyes squinched tightly closed against the anticipated shock. He wasn't sure precisely what would shock him more at this moment (the oxygen he needed for circumspection was absent, naturally, at this most crucial of times): the inevitable kiss or the possibility of a refusal to give one. Harry's continued silence (Harry had  _always_  talked before, no matter how occupied Draco kept him) said one thing; the tilt of Harry's jawbone, just barely brushing his own, said another. But Draco would not ask, nor beg, nor enquire; none of those were his way –  _their_  way, really, in a world where the rules of civil give-and-take had become so very primitive – and Harry would surely do (take, give, say or not say) whatever he chose to, as he always did.

Draco waited, checked and checkmated, the damp cold of the wall only fractionally supporting the damp chill of his own rigid stance, and pondered the relativity of his own existence and if it would cease when Harry kissed him – or when Harry  _did not_.


	2. Velocity Equation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theorem Arc #2
> 
> V=D/T
> 
> [Velocity]

Theorem Arc

_V=D/T_

[ _Velocity_ ]

It took every molecule of pure-blooded stamina Draco Malfoy had swimming through his aristocratic bloodstream to impel his rangy body a fraction of that most important millimeter forward; paradoxically, it demanded nothing at all. The effort had already been made, all those months ago. Years.

Draco sighed and angled with surgical precision, his lips twisting delicately over Harry's, quicksilver tongue darting to seduce. He kept his keen Seeker's eyes tightly closed, partially in acceptance of his overwhelming need to concentrate solely on touch, with no other distractions; partially because he acknowledged the monumental effort Potter had just made on his behalf, backing Draco into the wall like this – tilting his chin up just so. Mostly because this way he could feel and taste and inhale and finally allow himself the freedom of wanting a fuck of a lot more,  _right now_.

And, as he wished it, perhaps because he wished it, the stone at his back shifted. On cue, Harry walked forward, never taking his mouth from Draco's, never hesitating. Draco stumbled backward, but not before he took against himself the comforting length of a Potter pressing all the way down his shivering frame, shoulder to chest to belly, thigh and shin. The uncomfortable crick in his neck from bending over Potter meant nothing, as little as the reddened scrape developing along his upper arm where the door's ragged wooden frame caught above his tight-bent elbow on the way past. Later, he'd maybe regret the loss of another Italian wool jumper; later, he might wish that Potter could've for once picked a cleaner, less disreputable place for them to shag, but for now the only things that had any bearing on the universe were Harry's tongue and Harry's hands and Harry's—

Malfoy nearly sobbed aloud when Potter ripped his mouth away, feeling his hopes wither in the vacuum.

"H-Harry?"

Potter was forging forward, clear-eyed, something more than mere inertia apparently keeping him moving, the arm around Draco's waist hauling him inescapably along as well, and Draco stumbled again, turning sideways to frontways and organizing his shaky legs in concert fast enough to accommodate Potter's marginally shorter stride.

"Come  _on_."

The passageway was as dirty as Draco remembered it: all cobwebs and mousebones crunching, dead tendrils of some light-abhorrent vine creeping up damp granite block. It narrowed and Draco had to duck and hunch all too soon, which only made the tension in his nape and temples that much worse. He realized he wasn't breathing again, cursed Potter silently, and sucked in deliberate mouthfuls of musty air as he rushed helter-skelter. There was a wooden panel above his head before he knew it and then Potter was scrambling up a rickety ladder, balancing impossibly with one hand shoving up the flimsy trapdoor and the other one - equally grubby - extended back to Draco behind him. Draco took the hand gratefully and used his own free one to follow Potter up. He was vastly unsurprised to find himself in a storeroom, fighting off an overbearing miasma of sugar.

'This way."

The glamour was a waft of warm air. Draco blinked and blinked again at the lights of Honeydukes, swallowing back nervous bile. His stomach clenched at the odor of chocolate, the earthy wellings of butter and cinnamon and black current syrup. Harry had his dirty, rough hand caught round securely round Draco's forearm now and was urging him forward again. A good thing, Draco realized, because he was going to vomit immediately if he didn't get out of there. They were in the darkened street in seconds, the shopbell clattering faintly behind them, and Draco gratefully got back to coordinating his breathing again, feeling his lungs inflate and compress as he willed them.

"Finally!" he muttered, impatiently, mostly inaudibly. Blast Potter for doing this the hard way!

They walked faster now, pacing down the lamp-lit cobbles quietly, darkened storefronts presenting yet more memories of Hogsmeade weekends past. The glamours fell from both their features, unnoticed. After a minute of two of rapid perambulation, Harry spoke.

"I've got a room reserved – you hungry? Thirsty? Want a drink?"

The bright green glance sent in his direction was blandly inquiring and Draco suppressed the normal urge to pound the face that surrounded it into smithereens. How the fuck could Harry think he wanted mere  _food_?  _More_  food?! Cretin! Alcohol – well, maybe, if only to slow his thundering heart rate, but then he'd begrudge the time it took to drink it and Harry had enough to put up with without adding Draco's foul temper and they should just get to the bloody room and do what they needed to do. Now.

"No!"

Draco's regular voice was rusty, as he hadn't used it for so long. Not to talk to Potter, at least. He hadn't spoken much to anyone, really, even if it was clear that most of the other students – the 6th, 7th and '8th' Years at least – accepted his presence without too much trouble. That was…nice. He hadn't expected it, but then the Trials had been very well broadcast and Potter and his cronies had made it their zealous mission to stomp out prejudice from the very get-go. Even Lucius probably would've gotten a shortened sentence, had he lived. But he hadn't; simple pneumonia had carried off his already curse-weakened body within a month of being sent to Azkaban. The time remaining of Draco's foreshortened summer break had been sucked up by lawyers and trustees and goblins and the Ministry – and his mum, heartbroken and inconsolable. Thank Merlin for wily Aunt Andromeda, who had gotten through when an equally forlorn seventeen-year old boy could not.

Potter had been at Hogwarts all that time, as near as a portkey and a short, hard walk, as far as the closest galaxy. Draco spent the early morning hours of most days wondering if he dared pleasantly surprise Potter with his company, maybe invite him out to breakfast. Maybe climb into his bed if he could get past the wards and the remaining phalanx of DA members and Aurors and displaced students no doubt milling around the Boy like mayflies.

"Not at  _all_. Get the fuck along, you twat!"

Draco's impatience had already edged him past the smaller teenager; he was the one dragging Harry along now, pell-mell, and Harry was grinning snidely at his back, Draco could feel it. The concept irritated him, as so much did nowadays, no matter how hard he worked on maintaining his peerless control and proper distance and the aloof Malfoy pride he still wore like a prince's mantle.

They fetched up at the newly remodeled Three Broomsticks while Draco was still fuming and Potter stepped past him with assurance, already flirting mildly with the pimply-faced night-clerk manning the desk. A bustle of humming conversation, raucous laughter and clinking glasses rolled toward them from the bar to their right. Silverware and the muted voices of late-dining tourists and leftover Hogwarts parents from the first weekend out trickled in like an insidious fog from their left. Draco noticed suddenly in a rather absent way that his robes were navy instead of grey and his unclaimed wrist and hand were a lovely shade of coffee-brown, one finger bound with a platinum ring. Potter still had a tight grip on his other arm, which somehow prevented Draco from seeking the comfort of smoothing his hair.

"Second floor, please. Two-ought-two. Under 'Evans'. I flooed earlier today."

"Mister and Mister?" The clerk pushed forward a large parchment and a quill, unfazed by Harry's famous smile. Draco didn't take his usual offense at this slight to Potter's undeniable charm, though he did shudder infinitesimally: the tosser was a half-head taller than he right now, rail-thin as Snape and covered in lurid freckles and a fox-red goatee. He wore plaid trousers with a rather loud pattern and was using a loud, vaguely Yankee-styled voice: an escaped tourist, mad for St. Andrews. Yes…perhaps Harry was not at the moment as attractive as usual, but that was alright.

He'd do.

"Yeah, that's us. Y'all still do room service here?"

Potter signed with a flourish as the clerk nodded, Draco peering over his shoulder to see the scrawl of 'H. & D. Evans, Wilts & Conn, USA' taking up all the space in the blank beside 'Room 202'.

_Their old room_. Nostalgia clutched at Draco's gut for a wavery moment, dragging him down, weakening his knees.  _Harry remembered_ —

And he missed the passing to-and-fro of a Muggle credit card and a coffee-spotted menu and an old-fashioned brass key entirely, completely asea in those memories. Harry had him moving again before he realized, this time fully hand-in-hand, and Draco was stumbling up again, this time on a familiar narrow wooden staircase, and bumping gently into Harry's shoulder when Potter came to a stop before a beloved but very nondescript brown door.

On the other side of it he could breathe again, because Harry's mouth was back on his, slipsliding across the twitching corner of it, and then diving in when Draco gave an involuntary smile. Draco groaned and attempted to meld his person into Potter's and nearly gagged on their combined spit before he remembered once again to inhale through his nose. His robe was dragged off while he was recalling how to swallow, sucking Harry's tongue down his throat as far he could go without choking. Well! All those mundane, life-supporting things he'd somehow forgotten how to do, over the endless summer and into the Highlands autumn. He'd have to make a list or some such. Later.

"Me?"

How Potter could manage to verbalize in this situation, Draco didn't know. He paid no attention, hands on Harry's buttons, fumbling and tugging.

"Or."

The flannel shirt was yanked down and off and sent to the floor. A dexterous Harry had vanished Draco's ruined jumper in the meantime, using wandless, wordless magic, and Draco spared a thought to the incontrovertible fact that Potter really was a fucking show-off, as well as a perverted wanker.

"You?"

" _Yeah_."

Draco loved that about Harry, that shining pride the twink held in the largest and smallest of his various accomplishments, that secret joy that glimmered in his remarkable eyes whenever he outdid himself and managed something all those years of Muggle oppression had formerly convinced him he could not do. He'd been envious of it – the wonder, the innocence – and had not realized for forever that it drew him as much as Potter's raw power did, all along. There'd been only one time Harry's magic had caused Harry real grief – only one, in Draco's experience at least, and that was worst thing the Dark Lord had  _ever_ done, in Draco's humble opinion. Draco wished he could take on that regret, free Harry of it, for Draco was learning how to deal capably with loss and he had better defenses than Harry did, being a Malfoy. Most of the time, anyway.

" _Please._ "

No matter what Harry said.

They were both pantless and shirtless now, toeing off shoes. Draco pushed his shoulders away from the door and guided Harry back to the bed, blind and relying on memory for he was fully occupied with nibbling his way down Harry's neck. Potter's knees caught the edge and Draco flung an automatic arm out and they fell sideways in a graceful Malfoy-controlled manner and bounced twice.

Potter moaned just a bit when Draco finished up the second hickey, a wispy sound that had Draco's erection swollen almost beyond endurance. Harry's poke at his chest and muffled snort of laughter did absolutely nothing to reduce the engorgement.

"Hey! Which?"

With typical Malfoy wit and the flash of lightning-fast intelligence Draco had become celebrated for, in classrooms and at war, Draco finally twigged that Potter had asked him some sort of burning question, in the very recent past.

" _What_ ever. Which _ever_. Don' care."

And Draco truly didn't mind, as long as it led to them stuck together somehow, glued with cum and spit and sweat. The thought impelled him forward, mouth first, greedy hands and hips a heartbeat behind, and Potter met him and matched him, to Draco's unspoken delight.

"Just—"

_In me. Around me._ With _me. Please._


	3. Pressure Equation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theorem Arc #3
> 
> P=F/A
> 
> [Pressure]

Theorem Arc

P=F/A

[Pressure]

There was something in Harry that always wanted to  _give_. No matter what the cost, no matter how difficult it would make his life later. It was so deeply intertwined with his character that he'd come to understand that it  _was_  his character: there was no way to deny all of himself, even if he ought to be far more focused than your average wizard on self-preservation, even if he did actively invite damage far more often than his closest friends could stand.

That was why Hermione fretted. That was why Ron spent much of his time looming threateningly as soon as he was tall enough to do so. That was why Sirius—

Well. Yes. Being a fool with his heart on his sleeve was a dangerous thing for any respectable Saviour, both to himself and others, too. Thank Merlin for Snape and Malfoy and Slytherins in general. Thank his stars [fortunately or unfortunately aligned] for Skeeter and Umbridge and Quirrel and Voldemort [ew!], or he'd have been an absolute goner the moment Malfoy really got his claws into him, two years ago.

Um, seven. Nearly eight, maybe, if one counted Madame Malkin's. Probably Malfoy did, fucking romantic ponce that he was.

As it was, he was only barely holding on and if ever a sneering Malfoy backed off enough to examine him critically, even that small dignity would crumble pathetically. Sad to admit that the Boy Who Survived relied on other people's blindness to guise his own frailty. If Voldemort had ever twigged on that, Harry would've only Lived the once.

Now, for instance, was a wonderful demonstration of this very conundrum: Draco sticking to him, mouth agape, eyes burning with a fever that matched Harry's own – not seeing, not seeing – his pink-and-white cock so hard it would take no effort whatsoever on Harry's part to have Draco on his back or on his knees, whichever Harry preferred. A forefinger to the shoulder, just here, and Malfoy would be shoving his ass in the air, cursing and begging. A palm down a hip bone, there, and it would be Harry biting the pillow, squirming loudly under Draco's ineffably knowing tongue.

So Harry, being a natural-born giver, decided that it was the best part of giving to take Draco first. Oh, he'd given Malfoy a choice, or lip service at least, but he knew the git was too far gone in LaLa Land to actually think about his question and reply responsibly. It was up to him, really, to make the decision, and his decision was to make the tension in Draco's shoulders go away – erase the niggle of fear that dwelled far back in those silvery-grey eyes, kiss away the lingering bitterness in Malfoy's desperate kisses and the wobble of latent despair from his knees. Give Draco back a little of Harry's own assurance, an injection of his own dyed-in deep belief. In the form of purest magical protein, of course. With force.

Because they were good together, that's why, Harry thought, shoving hard against Malfoy's shoulder, watching him scramble, all elbows and knees and wild eyes. Because it was  _right_  in a certain fundamental way that no one dared actually deny, Harry asserted thoughtfully, tight-clenched jaw gripping the softness of Malfoy's nape hard enough to bring the slinky git ramping willingly under him, spine bent, ass cheeks spread, whimpering already with raw need.

"—ry!"

Malfoy was mess, really; damp and sticky and well on his way to cumming even before Harry truly touched him, the hint of weak tears reddening his luxuriantly pale-lashed eyes.

Hmm. Brilliant. Erm, excellent, yes. Because there was Love here, Harry was positive, with a capital 'L', determinedly licking his way down the line of the tosser's delightfully elegant spine, sending Draco's satin-skin clad nerves twitching uncontrollably when Harry's tongue found and fondled tight, heavy balls covered with the downiest of pale furs. When he moved on to nibble the crease of Draco's creamy thigh, the gormless git nearly fell off his own knobby knees, he was so overcome. Harry had to spare an arm to wrap tight around the slim waist of his ex-foe, holding him firmly in place for the merciless drubbing that was to come. His whispered words took care of lube and reasonable safe-sex precautions – not that Malfoy would ever let  _anyone_ other than Harry touch him and Harry knew that as well as he knew his own name - and a quick grope with two saliva-damp fingers had Draco stretched and gasping incoherently of his submittal and his desire and—' _umph!_  '  _Then_ Harry was inching into heaven; then shoving in, barreling full-tilt down the tight, dark, musky Tunnel of Love.

Malfoy  _needed_ this so fucking bad. Harry was sure of it, had been convinced of it from the night before the final battle, when Malfoy couldn't stop touching him, couldn't stop glancing, couldn't shove his soul-deep fear far back enough for Harry to somehow manage to 'not see it' again. Voldemort had lost his slight advantage then and there: he didn't have what Potter had, never would. He wasn't 'precious' or 'wanted' or 'to die for', like Harry was. He was merely what had been Tom Riddle, and Tom Riddle really wasn't very much at all.

Which wasn't to say he'd rushed right back to Draco when it was over and asked to Bond with him on bended knee; oh, no, not at all. He  _had_  found his way to the Malfoy family's subtly apart little corner of the Great Hall eventually, hours and hours into the aftermath, shell-shocked, smoke-tinged, utterly exhausted and still smeared with the blood of 'friend' and 'enemy' and 'bystander' and he  _had_  done what he desperately needed to do right then: curl up limply in the loose circle of Draco's arms and knees, relishing the startled gape on the pointy git's deathly pale, bruised face, the sharply indrawn breaths of the Malfoys Senior, the silent tidal wave of Utter Disbelief that rolled from everywhere in the echoing room after Harry Potter had done such a Very Shocking Thing. If 'Mione had been in any condition to comment, she would've screeched her ass off with laughter at people's expressions, but—

They'd shagged once that night, before parting – even  _more_  hours later, when Lucius and Narcissa had finally slept, exhausted, and dawn was but a whisper away - in an abandoned classroom, hastily, silently except for the gasping reaffirmations of Life, and then the Malfoys had been escorted promptly off to their Ministry holding cell by grim-faced Aurors. And Harry had gotten back to work.

Lots to do. One would think there'd of been a break of some sort, but no. Not for Harry Potter. There was rebuilding and the Trials and Sorting and shit. No time to snag Draco for a relaxing rogering and of course the toffee-nosed fuckwit hadn't the balls to drop by.

Pity about Lucius. Harry never thought he'd think that, but it mattered to Draco, so it mattered to him. Grunting, he put more effort into hammering his trembling partner into a ball of soggy mush, ramming in so hard Draco's tonsils rattled; drawing out, smooth and fast and nerve-rending. Draco was wordless with appreciation, face flushed, and so tight. Time and distraction, Harry was certain – they both needed that, now. He'd make sure they got it, somehow.

He put his hand on Draco's cock finally, having teased him long enough, skittering fingernails over ribcage and nipples and navel. Draco moaned and screwed himself as tight as he could to Harry's hips with every burgeoning thrust, rocking wantonly between Harry's lube-slick palm and Harry's cradling pelvis.

"Ah-ah- _ah_! _Oooooh_ …"

Harry loved that particular sound – the sound of Malfoy falling apart. He grasped one sweat-slick thigh hard enough to leave purply-red bruises later and held Malfoy in place with gryphon talons, slamming now with the intent to do damage – nail the blue-blooded bastard but good, so that nancy-boy Malfoy here would never,  _ever_ forget this moment—give it up, deny it or mock.

So that Draco would always be  _his_.

"Mine!" he growled at Draco, and the skinny shit bowed his white-gold halo immediately and moaned "Yes!"

"MINE!" Harry bellowed, feeling it gathering in his balls and his cock, and Draco went utterly still beneath him, happily taking every steaming gob of sperm and lust and love Harry had stored up right up his gagging-for-it ass, straight through the conduit that led to his yearning heart. Draco's own joyous cum laced the pillows in response, spewing the sheets punctured and tangled by manicured claws and perfect teeth, pumped in throbbing spurts to decorate the carved wooden headboard, the dingily carpeted floor. Harry saw none of that – eyes closed,  _blind_  – but he could feel it, shuddering around him, absorbing him, taking him in.

"Ye—ssss….!"

It was all Draco could do to wheeze his reply audibly, and he wasn't sure if Harry heard him, or if it mattered all that much if he hadn't. It was truth. Bare and unvarnished and painfully obvious. Potter would notice, soon enough. Probably in about twenty minutes, he guessed, which was when Draco was planning on being fully recovered so he could fuck Potty-head into bleeding Nirvana and never let him come back.


	4. Thrust Equation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HP Theorem Arc #4
> 
> [F = m * a]
> 
> [1The simple force equation of thrust, calculated with mass as a constant and variable acceleration]
> 
> [2 A pun, probably originating with Potter, as it's poor]

_HP Theorem Arc: Thrust Equation_

_[F = m * a]_

[1The simple force equation of  _thrust_ , calculated with  _mass_ as a constant and variable  _acceleration_ ]

[ _2_  A pun, probably originating with Potter, as it's poor]

Draco started slow (quivering muscles still globby from recent exertion required that) and gently ( _he_ was  _not_  taking this for granted, after all) and Harry seemed to appreciate 'gently', as he started talking again.

"How's your mum?"

Draco was really only fully at ease when Harry talked through sex. He answered sometimes, when he felt like it. Or the occasion demanded.

"Mmmm. All right." Draco slathered Harry's chest with his tongue, circling nipples, lapping up scent and salt. "M'aunt's there. Teddy."

"Ah?" Harry hauled in a breath and released curiosity. "Me. You'll see me, too. I'll be there."

His mother had mentioned that. In passing, as if expecting Draco to be irritated. He'd thought he'd done a rather bang up job feigning annoyance.

"…When?"

"In a bit." Harry swallowed hard: Draco wrapping his lips around Harry's nads. "Mmm. I'm his other—"

"Like that, do you? More?"

"— _other_ —"

Draco slurped his way down to Harry's crack, found the pucker of his anus and poked his tongue in. Took it out immediately and nibbled away at Harry's previously abused thigh for a moment, teasing.

"This?"

"Guardian!" A pause, as Harry shut his mouth abruptly and shifted his sleek frame down the bed, opening his legs wider, giving Draco as much room as might be required. "I am. Dra…co." Harry sighed the last, or groaned it.

Must applaud Potter: blighter was still able to spit out actual English words. Not in a terribly meaningful order, but all the same…Draco didn't reply,  _per se_ , but he grunted in general acknowledgement and the sound vibrated just enough to have Harry squirming harder.

"Missed. That." Panting, chuffing away like the Hogwarts Express, here was Harry again, chiming in. " _You_."

"Mmmm." Back to the cock that bobbed against Draco's sharp slash of a Malfoy nose. It smelled so good and he wanted to devour it. He did so and Harry sped up his RPM to 'babble' setting.

"Draco! Draco, Draco, Draco!" he sputtered and gagged in a most complimentary manner. And started nattering again, annoyingly unfazed in the long term. Draco allowed himself a tiny frown.

"You know - I was going to come earlier—"

Draco laughed at that piece of unpardonable punning – an interesting effect was produced, all vibrating teeth and palate – and Harry gulped hard mid-sentence. But he was a determined git, Potter was.

"And then.  _And then_. Prof-Professor McGonagall asked me to finish up repairing the greenhouses – you know Nev's going to teach Potions, right? Snape. You know….oh, more! More, more, more – there! Merlin, yesssss….."

Potter had to be sucked halfway down Draco's throat by now; how could he still be yapping?

"Erm…Did you miss me? Draco? You didn't come by—or anything. Fire call."

Lucius's son stuck his tongue hard in Harry's slit so he wouldn't have to answer that using  _any_ form of communication – verbal or non - and Harry shrieked a bit through his nose and seemed immediately to forget the question.

"O-Owl?"

Or not.

Harry's lover went all out in a serious effort to distract. When Draco had his rhythm reestablished [he, too, was a determined git] – nice and easy, plunging up and down and sucking just enough to coax Harry to roll his hips continually in response – Harry spoke up again, sounding much more relaxed.

"I'm leaving Hogwarts. You know…. _mmmm_.  _Like that_. Soon. Done here."

Too relaxed. Draco kept his own mouth moving automatically, lips and tongue and hidden teeth a shielding spell against the sudden cold trickle panging just below his spleen and spreading slowly through his intestines, so frigid and tectonically glacial that he stupidly thought perhaps he could halt it in its tracks by grasping the swollen base of Harry's cock and shutting him up completely with rapid rough wanking. Didn't work.

" _Malfoy?!"_  Potter dug his heels into the quilt at the sudden abuse and lifted up, Draco furiously forcing him back down only at just the last second. " _What the fu—!?"_

Bastard!

Fuck it! Nothing Draco did ever worked out the way he planned it! There should've been plenty of time – Merlin's Teeth, they were only a month or so into this farce of an 8th Year. And why in the Seven Circles had he ever thought he loved it when Harry talked? Why had he believed it was comfortable, soothing, reassuring? Why? When all Harry ever spoke of amounted solely to bloody precursors of  _change_  and  _consequence_  and  _moving on_  and  _acting now_  and fucking  _leaving_?

Truth and Justice. The Pureblood Way. Mudblood Rights. When had he ever cared about those? Draco slid a vicious finger into Harry whilst the other boy was once again attempting to arch his hips up, the nail and bitten cuticle a little dusty still from the passageway and the ladder and totally dry of any lubricant.

What did they matter in the end? he wanted to know, wriggling the digit about in order to find that certain nub of nerve endings within Harry's perfect ass (the one that would summarily remove all possibility of Potter speech for the immediate future, since simple pressure had been ineffective.)

What did it matter anyway, if he was stuck at the Manor with Mum and Teddy and Aunt Andromeda? And trapped at Hogwarts till NEWTS were done. That was months and months away and Potter—

Wasn't waiting about. Not for him.

Another thrusting finger, and both were slick now from his own saliva and Harry's forcefully wrenched-out ejaculate, spurting and slipping down his knuckles and gushing all over Harry's midnight curls. Draco couldn't see the silver lacing over the black; his lids were closed tight against the burn behind them, the deadly prickle he wouldn't be able to hide properly even in the dimness of a soulless hotel room lit by a single lamp. Draco jostled his invading fingers, adding his tongue to work between them, and Harry kept on clenching and gasping, helpless in Malfoy's grasp though the last of his barely resuscitated store of cum must've been wrung from his heaving body within the first few seconds. He orgasmed still, shuddering: dry, as barren as the wasteland the seeping acrid chill had left behind within the wall of Draco's rib cage, and Draco did not dare stop this whole business now – nor did he actually care to reach for his cloak of civility and assume the mask of 'considerate lover'.

He wasn't fucking done yet.

By no means was he finished.

Draco Malfoy ripped his gaping jaw away from Harry's twitching bottom and reared up on his knees, a grim-faced wraith in the evening's gloaming, roughly carrying Harry's legs over his shoulders as he did so. A curse-filled fumble and a piercing jab later and he was finally inside Harry and well on his way to fiercely demonstrating his indomitable hatred of all that defined 'Potter': sick at heart that now he couldn't say all those well-chosen PC words he'd rehearsed so carefully, for Potter had stolen the proverbial flying carpet directly from under his feet again; for Potter had blown out the walls of this wonderful refuge - for Potter had abandoned Draco yet one more time: twisting in the gale and strung out and terrified  _again_.

"Ungh!" Potter whinged, all the pre-sex prep in the world no match to Malfoy's savage lunging. The Boy Wonder seemed to sink back into himself, arms splayed every which way, face slack.

And there could be no better thing than this, Draco knew; this heat and grip and ripple of straining flesh below him, those pathetic needy snivels and tiny blowsy half-gasps and the bits-and-pieces of Draco Malfoy's name dribbling out from Potter's lips. And if this was all he'd ever have, all he'd be left with, then this would be the best fuck Potter would ever get. The best fuck ever.

One perfect fuck. That's what Potter was. He'd forgotten how good it was, after all these months. Forgotten that Harry was raw silk inside, velvety and giving, and warmer than any cashmere glove Draco had ever the pleasure to don. Somehow managed (whilst buried in official paperwork) to not quite recall that Harry's ass cheeks were firm and smooth when spread under his damp palms; that his nest of curls was inky dark and tangled and damply fragrant, the perfect place to entwine the fingers of one grasping hand should one be intent on keeping a short leash on one Potter, Harry. Somehow let slip away (during the time in Azkaban and the time wasted at the Ministry) to the dim recesses of hallow'd memory the perfect rose of Harry's gathered nipples, coaxed to an even darker shade under the ministrations of Draco's lips; the way his throat always tasted when he was pliant like this, corded with strain and salt-slick and eminently vulnerable to Draco's nuzzling mouth. (Lost to the dull pain of Father's funeral) the heady scent that wafted up whenever they were joined just this way – hip to hip, sex imbedded – clouding in his ruffled no-longer-perfect-hair and filling Draco's patrician nostrils with sharp and sweet and moss and cinnamon, all underlaid with the base aroma of rutting male musk.

_Lyingtomyself! Lyingtomyself! Lyingtomyself!_  Draco's semi-conscious mind scolded, as he forged farther in.

He could identify Harry by scent alone, now. By the touch of one wayward lock or the brush of one off-broom awkward shuffling stumble; by the size of his hands and taste of his saliva and sound of his breathing, asleep or awake, even if Draco were to be hexed dumb and blind and mute all at once, with absolutely no warning. And he had never, ever forgotten one single moment of any one of their memorable encounters, from first forced kiss to last semi-silent wrangle, and Dumbledore would damn him to die a castrated Pie-Eyed Skrewt if he didn't find a way to hang on to one Harry Potter, the one perfect fuck of his entire fucked-up life. With a cold clarity birthed by the best shagging ever – and Draco knew the next one would be just as good – he screamed a great internal "Sod off!" to NEWTS and the Manor and obligations and anything other than this moment, this man.

_Mine_.

Of course, Draco wasn't required to be so gauche as to  _clue Potter in_  or anything of the sort. Confessions were for girls and innocent virgins. Rings were for lackluster nits and spineless wannabes. Bonds required no trappings or traditions or stupid words of forsaking all others or 'love eternal'. Draco only had to make sure he managed to stick by Potter – and keep Potter stuck on him – and that was dead-easy, when they were each other's Fated Foe. They'd always been that, right? They were still 'that' – and now it was but child's play with Voldemort handily destroyed. Not one thing to hamper the path now; not one compelling reason to prevent them from continuing on the road they were always meant to tread. What was that old Muggle saw: 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer'? Draco could do that. He could.

_Mine_.  _You're mine_. Smiling snidely, he told this to Potter, who was finally rousing somewhat from his motion-induced daze, responding at last, though weakly, to the weight and girth that filled him, pushed him, hemmed him in. Harry's hands fluttered up (perhaps in protest, perhaps in need), grasping fitfully at Draco's shoulders – slipping on sweat and then digging in, short, rough nails biting half-moons, as they always did. His mouth gaped open, begging to be filled or perhaps to tell Draco to 'slow down' or something equally foolish, and Draco mindlessly obliged his Harry, angled sharply, eager, claiming - as he always did.

_No other shall have you while I live and breathe, you git._

Potter was bent nearly in half now, feet waving wildly in the air somewhere above Draco's ears, gasping for oxygen between battering blows, and crying out with the nothing he had left over.

'Oh! Mi…ne! Give it here, Malfoy!  _Give me mine!"_

One. Perfect. Fuck. One, perfect—

Draco didn't even have to drag either sticky hand to Harry's cock to push him that final little distance – good thing, that, as his hands were entangled and clamped on hair and ass – didn't even need turn away from what he was currently doing (curling his own spine back in readiness for a Neanderthal roar, the tendrils of his humid hair hanging a quarter the way down his Harry-scratched back) to pay scant attentions to his needy lover. He wasn't impelled to scream 'Mine!' or 'Yours!" or commit any social solecism, such as the blathering such inutterables as 'Baby!' or 'Darling!' And he had no fine compunction restraining him from 'letting go' or 'taking it easy'. He merely did exactly what Harry Potter wanted him to do: fucked him madly, filled him to the brim and overflowing, and collapsed after, boneless and barely respiring, crushing Potter's yielding limbs under his own like a certain reassuring ballast, anchoring them both firmly to the bounds of earth.

Potter stayed to finish 8th Year. He took extra NEWTS and fidgeted. Malfoy bitched and chivvied at him, both in public and private, so he stayed. Teddy grew to love his uncles. Aunt Andromeda moved into the Manor. Draco moved out, though not in with Potter. That came later, after much argument and posturing. In Gibraltar, actually, because Potter had the nicer flat.

Neither ended up as an Auror. Neither went off to Hogwarts to teach (not yet). They both tried infidelity and found it sorely lacking and made up fairly instantly after, without too much trouble. Draco discovered that, with the wise application of alcohol and humor, he could tolerate the Weasleys on the whole. Harry fell instantly in love with Narcissa, which sent the wind up Draco as soon as he realized. Grainger was discovered to be more than merely tolerable – a real friend; Draco's second - but that process took a great many years longer, though she was much easier than the Weasel to converse with at first.

Blaise married Pansy. Pansy survived. Ginny married some random professional Quidditch player from the Cannons and promptly got divorced. Ron and Hermione steadfastly dated till well after she gave birth to the second child in Year 3. Molly put her foot down then. Draco found an oddly familiar platinum ring on his ring finger in Year 5 and immediately fled to the bathroom to sob his grinchy little heart out, Harry following right after and appropriately freaking out with apologies and worry.

No one else died or inexplicably turned Death Eater or stalked them, except Rita Skeeter and that was to be expected – the stalking, of course. And Snape in due course retired. And Draco and Harry – in due course – came to place they could call 'home'. And both were well aware they'd been there all along.


	5. Gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HP Theorem Arc #5: Gravity
> 
> [Gee, um. Gravity makes things go together. So much for the scientific explanation.]

HP Theorem Arc 'Gravity'

_[Gee, um. Gravity makes things go together. So much for the scientific explanation.]_

_-o0o-_

_Hogwarts, September, 1999_

"I don't understand why we keep tripping over him, Harry."

"Well, we've all got these lectures we share, Herm—"

"I know that, Harry, but he's everywhere—I turn around and I'm practically on top of him!"

"It's a right pain in my arse," Ron chimed in on cue, catching them up halfway down the corridor to NEWTS-level Transfiguration. "Bloody lurker."

Which was practically a compliment from Ron, at least when it came to Malfoy.

"Yes, well, it's not like the two of you aren't used to him, now. I admit he's a bit stiff still—"

"Like a bleeding poker!" Ron interjected. "Bleeding broomstick, more like; what a fucking git!"

"And formal—" Harry went on, doggedly.

"Language, Ron!" Hermione scolded.

"But you just have to give him a chance—" Harry kept at it, trying to forge a sort of peace.

"We  _have_ , Harry," Hermione's intonation clearly indicated the level of herculean patience she'd needed for dealing with Malfoy during the war. She even stopped, right in the middle of the hallway, to stare at him. "But it's over now; we all just need to get on with our lives, you included, and I don't think it's a good idea—"

"And Malfoy's part of it," Harry interrupted quickly, before Hermione could say something unsayable. "I mean, erm. There's only so many people left, you know? Here, I mean. Overall, but Slytherin. In particular, yes—they've been practically decimated. So, we're going to see them—the ones we _can_  see, I mean, not the ones in Azkaban. Right?"

Ron grunted, but even he made no rude comment about Malfoy's likelihood of visiting Azkaban on a long-term visit. It just wasn't going to happen, not at this point, given the sheer amount of information he'd turned over while Voldemort was 'the' Malfoy houseguest of note.

"Now, Harry, it's just that it's beginning to be a bit ridiculous." Hermione would've stuck her hands on her hips, a la Molly, but fortunately her hands were full of texts to return to the Library, and thus they were spared. "You know," she shook her head at him, acting as if he should understand whatever it was she was telling him without, er—telling him.

"What is?" Harry, who'd been ready to move forward again, stopped suddenly, frowning at both his two best friends. Though, perhaps, his Slytherin-self whispered silently, this wasn't the best place to do this, on the way to a class and in a crowded hallway. "What is, Hermione?" said the Gryffindor. "What's so ridiculous about it?"

"Oh—" Hermione looked slightly taken aback at Harry's ramped-up intensity. She glanced away, obviously uncomfortable with being put on the spot. "Just—I don't get it, Harry. It's as if he's your shadow or something—"

"Look, we get along, Hermione. And, too, we—"

"Not like that, you don't, Harry," Ron threw in. "Not in public, at least. Oh, look—come  _on_ ; I don't want to listen to McGonagall gripe if we're late again. I don't know about you two but I don't need a detention."

"Oh, he's right, Harry—let's go," Hermione looked startled at the numbers on Ron's Tempus. "We'll talk about this later."

"I don't see really what there is to talk about," Harry grumbled, but he did it under his breath, as he trailed somewhat forlornly after Ron and Hermione. "It's fine."

Strange, what peace did. Things that perfectly acceptable during wartime were no longer, it seemed. And friendships, forged in the worst of circumstances, were oddly strained.

_-o0o-_

"Problems?"

Malfoy's mouth was pressed up against Harry's ear. His breath tickled as he lipped his way around the scalloped edge.

"Harry?"

"Hmmm?" Harry was happily enjoying the little pang of pure electricity racing up his spine; he barely heard Malfoy's mutter as actual words. "No—no! Nothing I can't handle. Don't worry about it."

Draco pulled away, scowling, and looked for a moment exactly as he had as a Sixth Year—petulant, superior, spoilt—until one looked a little more closely and saw there were fine lines round his eyes and mouth that hadn't been there two years ago. They were gradually fading—lines of strain, not real wrinkles, them—as were the purplish circles under his grey eyes, but it was months along now and neither of them were quite what they had been before the final battle. And that wasn't petulance, either—it was concern.

He buried his unhappy face in Harry's neck and mumbled mutinously, tightening his arms about his lover.

"If you fucking tell me, maybe I can do something—"

"Draco."

"Something about it.  _Wanker_."

"Draco, it's alright. It's just Ron and Hermione."

"…Oh."

Harry pressed a light kiss against one corner of Draco's folded-tight lips. They parted, ever so slightly, and he and Draco shared a long, speaking glance over noses and spectacle rims. Draco shrugged. Harry sighed.

"Yeah."

_-o0o-_

_Hogwarts, October, 1999_

"—stares at him all the time; it's sickening, Herm, I swear."

"Well…I suppose so, Ron, but—"

"I mean, I thought they'd be done with this by now—you know, just blowing off steam, it's alright, but—it's like sodding animals, Herm—fucking  _animals_!"

"Ron—"

"He's staring right back at him, too. Sixth Year all over again—I'm going to vomit if they keep this going, Hermione, I tell you. No lie. Turns my stomach. Just can't watch, you know. It's bloody  _Malfoy_."

"Yes…still, Ron, perhaps we should—"

Ron fidgeted; played with his quill, turning it over and over, frowning at it.

"If we talk to him, maybe," Hermione murmured, petting the back of his hand, fiddling with the red hairs on his knuckles, "or perhaps to Malfoy; I mean, it's not like  _he's_  got any finer feelings for Harry but still, he's—"

" _You've_ got to say something to Harry, Hermione," Ron went right on, galloping roughshod over Hermione's soothing mutter. He ripped his hand away; waved it aimlessly. "He'll listen to you—if it's me, he won't, but  _you_. Yeah,  _so,_ Hermione," Ron nodded. Rose and started pacing, speaking as if more to himself or an invisible Harry than his girlfriend, who only watched with sad eyes. "Tell him he's got to be done with this foolishness right now; somebody's going to get the wrong idea about them and Malfoy's still a dangerous chap, there's no denying that, and I don't want Harry caught up in it—he's had enough to deal with—we've  _all_ had enough to deal with and no more,  _ever_ —"

Abruptly running out of steam, Ron whomped his arse back onto the much-abused cushions once more, instinctively reaching out to haul Hermione closer, so they were tucked together in the pose that always gave them comfort: the two of them against the world: a single unit, come what may.

"Hey—oi, you two!"

It was Harry, suddenly, easing onto the couch in front of the common room's crackling hearth and grinning stupidly—innocently—at the two of them, huddled together, Hermione now firmly in Ron's lap.

"Wotcher whispering about?" Harry quirked his dark brows at them, glancing from one stolid, set expression to the other. "Secrets?"

"Harry!"

Ron snorted, but he didn't reply, turning his face away sharply into Hermione's hair and folding his lips thin as blades.

"…er, guys?"

_-o0o-_

"Weasley."

"Malfoy."

"Pardon, please. I need to pass by."

"…Yeah."

_-o0o-_

"It's just that I don't see what the problem is, Hermione," Harry whined. He drummed his fingertips on the library carrel he and Hermione were sharing. It was hard to find a spot clear enough to tap, there were so many texts she'd insisted they needed for swotting up on Astronomy.

"You never do, Harry."

"I mean, it's not a big deal—well, maybe if we were Muggles or something, but not  _now_ , not  _here_ , so—"

"Right, right, Harry. But, you should just…just—"

"What?" Harry glared at her, his chin firming up pugnaciously. "What, Hermione?"

"Look, er. Exactly how…serious  _are_ you, Harry? About Malfoy?"

_-o0o-_

"Thanks for the Charms notes, before." A grudging acknowledgement, but something all the same. Draco forced a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Not a problem, Weasley. You can pass them on to Granger if you wish. Potter copied them earlier from me but he's with McGonagall all the afternoon yet. Give them back to him when you're done."

"Ah…yeah," the Weasel nodded, awkward still. Always awkward, in Draco's opinion. Born that way. "Thanks. Er—Aurors. Supposed to see if Shacklebolt meant what he said about the DA members—you know, joining up?" Ron swallowed, glanced away briefly, caught all the various avid eyes upon them from passing students, and glanced back again to grey eyes that regarded him seriously. This was all far too out in the open, Ron decided; if he must deal with Malfoy, Ron would rather it be somewhere with fewer witnesses. And sadly, for Harry, he must.

"You know, Weasley?" Malfoy drawled, with a lift of a dark blond brow and a questioning lilt in his voice. He hadn't shoved right off as Ron expected him to, which rather left Ron at a loss. Not much in common, he and Malfoy—only Harry. Only ever Harry, apparently.

"Yeah?" But perhaps this was the opening he'd been waiting for, Ron thought, and took a calming breath. He could maybe talk to the arse—if he had to. Find out what was what, at least, for Harry's sake.

"I'm beginning to think you don't like me." The brow went higher yet-and perhaps this was Draco's chance to get to the meat of the matter. Harry was uncomfortable and Draco didn't like that.

_-o0o-_

"Um."

"Exactly, Harry. Think about it, won't you? That's all we're asking."

Harry flopped his head down on  _Charms, Charmers and Prince Charming: Is He a Muggle Myth?_  and huffed his general dissatisfaction with life, people who questioned him and people who caused him to question himself.  _Caring_  people, like Hermione, who didn't want to see him at anyone's mercy, but especially not Malfoy's.  _Worried_  people, like Ron, who took after his mother far more than he'd ever admit.

"Right….right."

_-o0o-_

"Yeah?" Ron raised a ginger eyebrow in return. He stepped sideways, into a convenient alcove, and Malfoy followed discreetly, taking their low-voiced exchange out of the public's purview. "What makes you think that, Malfoy?"

"Pardon me if I'm misconstruing your actions in any way, Weasley," Malfoy went on mendaciously, his tone decidedly sardonic, but not incendiary, "but I've noticed you and Granger aren't, shall we say,  _au fait_  with the thought of Potter and myself involved on a...more serious basis. You both seem so dreadfully…uncomfortable." He smirked at the Weasel meaningfully—or rather dragged out his easy sneer, one lip curling, and displayed it, knowing it would rile the Ronnikins a bit. "Or perhaps it's with the concept of two blokes shagging, instead. Tell me, is that a Muggle value of Granger's you've learnt to admire or simply a personal preference you've allowed to colour your perceptions?"

"Huh? No!" Ron was appalled—honestly. Like he'd ever, ever be like Harry's hated Dursleys! The thought made him sick, it did. "Merlin, no, you twat! That's not it!"

Blonde eyebrow trumped red, by way of arching higher and at a more saturnine angle that had taken simply years to perfect. Flushing, Ron gave it up altogether and reverted to a basic, all-purpose frown. Oddly enough, though—to Draco's mind-he didn't jump instantly at Draco to hex him or hammer him with his beefy fists, as he had been wont to do in years past.

He seemed genuinely puzzled—and concerned. Malfoy, sensing that, let his sneer go and stared at his ancient enemy with equal curiosity. They'd managed a certain civility lately, if not pushed overmuch or nagged to do so, he and the Weasel. And—in an odd way—they were united for a common cause, still.

Ron gulped, flushed, and sucked a huff of air, bulging his cheeks like a chipmunk's. Then he let it all out, in a rush. Time to get down and dirty, then.

"You know, Malfoy, me and Hermione, well. We're going to get married someday—"

"You actually popped the big 'Q', Weasley?" Draco managed to express just the right amount of amused shock to actually wind up Ron's relaxing frown back to the real thing. "Oh, but that's excellent! Ten points to Gryffindor for managing to do this before you've turned thirty, Weasley! I shall go and collect my winnings from Zabini as soon as we're finished here."

"Shut  _up_ , Malfoy! We  _are_ —I just—You!" Red, then pale, then red again, Ron struggled visibly to clamp down a firm lid on his temper.

"I know, I  _know_ —you'll get to it," Malfoy smiled suavely and patted the red-headed youth on the shoulder in an annoyingly avuncular way. Ron scowled. "You're young yet, y'know? Plenty of time to save up for that all-important Bonding ceremony and so forth. And it's alright, Weasley, really— _I_ believe you, even if no one will."

"You'd better, prat," Ron groused, finally allowing his mouth to quirk into an unwilling grin. It was a running joke 'round Hogwarts—even  _he_  knew about it—about how long it had taken him to progress beyond 'teaspoon' level. He didn't dare ask his girlfriend if he'd managed to rise above cutlery yet. "And stop taking the piss on me, alright? I'm trying to say something important here."

"So…?" Malfoy's shoulders were nowhere near as tense as they'd been at the beginning of this odd interview. He lounged back, settling comfortably against the rough-hewn wall and propping a foot flat against it, bending his knee so he could balance his bookbag on it. "You were saying, Weasley?"

"Well…what about you and Harry? What are  _you_  going to do, Malfoy?"

_-o0o-_

_Hogwarts, November, 1999_

"Harry."

Draco was on his knees in the Owlry and Harry thought he never looked so good, stray feathers in his hair, owl shite speckling his trousers and nose wrinkled up to fend against the pungent odour. It  _was_  an odiferous place to meet, true, but it was out of the common way and it was warm, something they'd both come to appreciate as the Highland autumn daily grew cooler.

"Oh, gods, Harry. So hard." Draco pulled off and regarded the wet cock bobbing before his nose proudly. He licked it again, digging his tongue 'round the edges of the foreskin, teething ever so lightly at the point where the shaft blossomed into the swollen, blunted head. "So hard."

"For you," Harry moaned, struggling to open his eyes wide enough to watch. "Only for you." He dragged at Draco's shoulders in a sudden lunge forward, practically puncturing the wool with raggedy fingernails, attempting to get him as close as humanly possible.

"Only for me, please. Keep it that way, alright?" Draco whispered when he next surfaced to breathe, but he didn't glance up to see if Harry heard him. There was a large part of him that daily wondered about the viability of this whole situation. They'd managed two months unnoticed except by the more perspicacious students—Nott, Bulstrode, Parkinson; Thomas, Granger (of course), the Weasel and Longbottom—but they were playing with fire on a daily basis. And the Weasel was just percolating and ready to blow off gusts of steam—and misplaced anxiety—at any moment, and bring the whole house-of-cards down upon their heads.

It was a dangerous position, being Harry Potter's lover. And Hasrry hadn't heard him just say that—and that was alright, too.

"Mmmm. Just there—oh! Just there!" Harry was sucking air; Draco happily returned to sucking cock with a vengeance, his lips and tongue and his swallowing throat sculpting Potter's dick into a thing of sodden velvet over rigid steel. It pulsed in his mouth, quivering with every inhalation, and leaked sticky salt slime down his gullet, so that he was driven to swallow harder still.

Indeed, both were happy in their own way, even if Draco's boney knees twinged painfully on the hard stone paving and Harry was quite close to hyperventilating with his head tipped all the way back like that and his mouth gaping open. There were worse things than physical discomfort, after all. Such as not doing this.

"Yesss…!" Harry sounded as if he might slip into Parseltongue any moment. Draco shivered and sucked even more vigourously, throwing all his might into it. "Yesss!"

"Har—" The thought of that sibilance happening had Draco so hard he seriously spared some worry to burning a hole through his own still-buttoned trousers with the force of his coming ejaculation. Because it  _was_ coming. He closed his eyes.

"Fuck! Draco—fuckfuck _fuck!_ "

"Ngh!"

Harry let go with a shout, choking himself after into happy, panting, incoherent little gasps, and Draco surged up between his widely gaping knees to swallow the tiny, lovely noises with his smeared lips and aching tongue, sending a leg flying over one of Harry's and frantically rubbed himself off against the stiff ridges of Harry's rumpled denim trousers… and he was quite happy, too, a moment after.

"Good?" Draco could feel the satisfied smirk right through his damp scalp.

"Yeah—good. Idiot."

_-o0o-_

"I'm not sure why you believe this to be your business, Granger."

Malfoy turned on his heel sharply and stopped. They were halfway between Professor Sprout's newly rebuilt greenhouse classroom and the equally recently reconstructed main entrance, and a steady stream of students returning passed them in gluts and droves, all unawares— _not_.

"It's my business because it's Harry, Draco. And it's  _your_  problem, so what are you going to do about it?"

Malfoy waited till Granger stepped off the path. They drew to one side, heads close together, both well aware of the always listening ears. Draco cast a Muffliato to be sure.

"Nothing, as there is no actual problem. We go on as we have, Granger. If Harry wants to change something in the future, I'm sure he'll let me know. Till then—"

"It's been noticed now, Draco. People talk, and they talk about Harry."

"And?" Grey eyes met brown, and pale brows were on the offensive, climbing high in challenge. "I care why?"

"It's not right, you know," Hermione was uncomfortable but clearly determined. "He doesn't need that type of attention on top of everything else."

"So?" Draco wasn't helping this. Granger could spin widdershins in her bloody concern till she drilled her pointy head into the ground, but in no way would Draco help her. But–clearly—she didn't need his aid to keep running her mouth.

"So," Hermione went on, brows beetling, as they always did when she was stating what she perceived to be  _fact_ , "after Ginny and Cho and poor Cedric and god-knows-who else Harry's ever crushed on, I don't think he needs you- of all people- to mess with his heart and then let him down. You're practically guaranteed to hurt him, Malfoy, whether you intend to or not; it's already a recipe for disaster, even now."

"Really?" he sneered. " I don't think so, Granger. In fact—"

Draco drew back on his heels, rocking slightly, his chin raised high. He looked at his fellow war veteran down the length of his very straight nose and pursed his lips in a mocking, superior smile. The vagaries of following Potter had brought them closer, but there would always be a distance never bridged.

He knew that; she knew that. But civility was not an issue; they were adults, despite the childish surroundings of boarding school. He'd keep it clean, then.

"Thanks so very much for your special vote of no confidence, Granger, not that it makes the slightest bit of difference, you realize. I've told you—if Harry wants something different, then it'll be different. If you think I'm bowing out of his life one single, solitary second before he tells me to, you're flat out barking."

"You don't mean that, Malfoy. You can't." Hermione shook her head sharply, sending her brown curls dancing.

"Of course I mean it," Draco huffed. "Why on earth would I bother with a truthful response to your intrusive and inane questioning into my personal life— _Harry's_  personal life, mind you; not just mine— if I were just intending to blow smoke?" He shrugged, and took a step back, suddenly eager to end something that likely would never be resolved—at least not to their satisfactions. Neither could win, could they?

"Look, I've no reason to lie to you, Granger. Certainly not about Potter. You know as well as I do he tells you and the Weasel everything he does, practically down to when he takes a whiz. How should I ever get away with anything nefarious?"

Hermione shook her head again, more slowly now, and shifted her heavy armful of books so that she could fiddle with a sleeve. A silence fell as she considered, and Draco waited patiently, wanting to hear whatever she had to say in response—because there was no doubt in his mind Harry would hear about this little  _tête-à-tête_ as well, in excruciating detail, and he refused to fight blindly.

In a moment, she looked back up and met his eyes squarely. He winced at the pity there, and straightened his spine in response.

"No—no, what I was actually referring to was the 'different'. It won't be, will it? You'll never allow it to be, not in the long run. I've watched you, Draco, over the years. You're the one who's barking, and it's all for Harry. You've got your claws in and now you'll never let go. Obsessive-compulsive behaviour, you know; there's a term for it. You're fixated on him, and it's not right, that. Harry's not an object—"

"Granger—" Draco began impatiently, but she was on a regular rant, and kept right on speaking, her voice gaining confidence as she went.

"Look, I do know he was very important to you during the war, Draco, and I realize he's been there for you and your mum after, and I do feel sorry for you both, believe me, but he's not a Saviour anymore. He's not some idol and he's not—well, you can't make him your personal hero, you realize. You can't just latch onto him and not let him have a chance at other people—he's only seventeen, Draco. So are you, for that matter. Be reasonable. Let it go now. Find someone else."

Draco glared at her, his face tight. His gloved knuckles tightened just the same on the strap of his book bag.

"Oh, yes, Granger—and that's completely different from your emotions for Weasley? The goggle-eyed way you watch him when you think he doesn't see, as if he were some sort of Muggle superhero? The way you always defer to him, and pander to his every wish and want when half the time he can't even articulate  _what_  he wants or  _why_?" Draco hauled in a breath and kept going. It was his turn now, finally.

" The fact that he's the very first person your eyes turn to when he enters a room? That sort of thing? It's all very sweet, Granger; don't misunderstand me. It's sodding romantic and I've nothing against it—and nothing against romance in general. But if you—you, of all people—dare claim those actions of yours are the result of a healthy 'normal' relationship, completely uncoloured by all the life-altering events you've— _we've_  all survived these last few years? Pah!" His spit nearly sprayed in her face, clouding the cold air between them. "I don't think so."

Hermione pursed her lips and licked them quickly, parting them, but never got an opening.

"No, I don't bloody think so!" Draco was shouting now, Silenced behind the Muffliato. "You're deathly afraid of losing your Weasel, Granger—admit it! You've seen his mortality dangling by a lousy thread right in front of your nose and you're bloody  _terrified_. It's not just lovey-dovey teenaged romance, Granger, is it? It's far deeper than that and bung full of  _fear_. For Merlin's sake, woman—don't you realize I'm in the same bloody position as you are! And ,worse yet,  _I_ had to hear he was dead and could do nothing about it! Not a single thing but wait and hope to Salazar that he had it all planned—that he'd mapped it all out and that it was just a trick to fool the bloody Dark Lord, another one of his party tricks he does so well!"

"He's not—no! Malfoy!"

"Why would— _no_ , how  _dare_ you go about defending your feelings as sacred and good and fucking perfectly normal and then say mine are not, simply because they're  _mine_?" Draco demanded, cutting her off. "Why  _is_  that, Granger, d'you think? A little leftover Death Eater mudslinging on your part? Or is it a little too much over-protectiveness for someone you still see as an abused boy? He's  _not_  a bloody child, by Salazar—leave him the fuck alone! Let him live, for once!"

Hermione gasped, as if he'd physically slapped her, harder yet than she'd ever slapped him. He'd never—never—once said that much to her, not even when they'd had their brief meetings to turn over information, nor even when they'd been assigned the rebuilding of the damaged kitchens, forced into yet more uncomfortable collaboration by sheer circumstance. It was shocking—Malfoy's words were shocking. It was if there was a whole other Malfoy, burning bright beneath the icy mask she recognized.

Hermione was staggered—because, beyond the oppressive weight of Malfoy's words, there was truth. That was exactly how she regarded her boyfriend: precious beyond words. Her reason for living.

She scrambled for words to return. Truly, she didn't want to hurt him—could understand, even, the fascination with Harry. Weren't they all a little in love with Harry? Why not Malfoy, too? But—but, it still wasn't  _right_. She stuck to that, all her innate stubbornness—the same that would not admit defeat before a bloody mad man—kicking in like an angered mule.

"No! Not at all, Draco!" she protested, straight off. "I'm not implying your 'feelings', as you call them, are less than mine, in  _any_  way, but—but, this is Harry!" she wailed, and dropped her books to stick her hands out and grab his wrists.

" _Harry._  He doesn't know how it works, Draco and when you're done—when you're finally bored, or you tire of him, or move on simply because it's expected of you or the pressure's too much from the media—well, it'll just destroy him, Draco. He's not like that. Not like you—or  _me_. He'll be crushed."

Malfoy smiled at her, and it was a glittering, dangerous bearing of teeth, with not a single thing jolly or lighthearted about it. For a blink or two, all Hermione could see was the bones of his skull, limned bleach white under the stretch of his fine-grained skin.

His eyes bored into her. The teeth became yet more evident, and Hermione all at once understood the Death's Head of the Mark—the  _why_ of it. It was bloody terrifying to watch someone want something—someone—more than life…perhaps that was where Voldemort had failed. He'd not had the right motivation.

"'I'm not planning on being 'done', Granger," Draco advised her, calmly plucking her fingers free and jerking his wrists free of her clinging. He stepped back, and shrugged her off entirely, a careless wave of one hand gathering up her books and stacking them neatly. They hovered in a towering mass of book learning, politely, waiting till he was finished speaking. "Not ever. That's what 'obsessive' is all about. And you'd do well to remember that."

He turned on his heel and stalked away, perfectly composed, and Hermione watched him go, and marvelled that she'd never before truly considered him a worthy threat.

Now she did.

_-o0o-_

_Hogwarts, August, 1999_

"You know, I could get used to this," Harry rolled over, taking Draco with him. The mattress was narrow and none too springy, and the sheets were common hotel ones, but neither minded.

"Umm," Draco may or may not have nodded into Harry's hair, but it was wild and at its fullest, so Harry didn't notice.

"Good," he replied, as if Draco had. "I've a thing lined up with the manager, so we can come back Friday and stay through the weekend—"

"Harry." Draco sat up so fast he made the bed ripple. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Harry cocked a brow at him, and folded his arms behind his head.

"You want to sneak around forever, Malfoy?"

"Tch! That's not the question, Potter! What I want and what we both need are two separate things—"

"I don't see it that way, Draco." Harry's tone was adamant. "And neither do you, if you think about it. Be honest, please. Do you want to do that forever? Because if we continue to hide it, people will start thinking it's worse than it is—that we  _need_  to hide it. And I don't. Do you?"

There was a long silence and then Draco laughed: a sharp, grating sound with little or no real amusement to it.

"No, of course not," he admitted. "And you know it, Harry. But I was thinking that my mother and Aunt Andromeda don't really need to have a storm of media interest to contend with, and that you need to study for NEWTS, as do I, and perhaps the less said right now, the better. There is such a thing as timing, Harry. I'm sure you've heard—"

"I don't care, Draco. Not a whit. Not a fucking sickle about the media, or NEWTS, or timing," Harry sat up and put his hands out, resting them on Draco's bare shoulders.

"You know…" he started, his voice meditative, "Hermione asked me what I want—what I intended to do after this."

"Yes?" Draco was still, though Harry, glancing down, noticed his fingers tightening on the sheets bunched across his lap.

"Not this," Harry waved at their tangled legs and the bunched-up sheets, "exactly. She meant Eighth Year. With my life."

"Yes?" Draco asked again, his eyes steady on Harry's face, never leaving the dilated pupils, the corners narrowing in cogitation. "What'd you say to her, then?"

"Well…I wrote—I mean she wrote me, on my birthday," Harry obviously felt the need to give this foray into more serious thoughts of the future some helpful background detail. "Wishing me a happy birthday and all. And she told me all about her parents and what Ron was doing with George and that sort of thing. And then she asked me what was I doing? Did I have plans? And I—well, I—"

"Yes, Harry?"

"I wrote back that I wanted to try normal, for once. You know—be someone, just anyone, that no one would bother about. Just another Wizard, for once. Like that. Get a job, go to uni—not in that order, but you know, right? What I mean?"

"…Yes." Draco carefully untangled his fingers; brought them up and gently smoothed Harry's hair back from his furrowed forehead. "I do. A little at a time, though, Potter. Be patient."

Harry smiled—full and bright, to rival the moon. He chuckled and butted his head into Draco's fingers like some over-large specimen of a Kneazle, on the prowl for pets. "You're right—which I don't like, mind you—but you are. I'm just impatient, but I want this, Draco. I want this, just so much. And I deserve it, too."

"I know," Draco's voice was little more than a murmur. He leant forward and Harry put his arms out automatically and Draco did too, and then they were holding each other up, in the centre of the mattress. Not lost, precisely, but not 'found' yet, either. "I know you do, Harry. And it's alright. It'll work out. Things do, if you give it time. Look at us."

"Yeah," Harry was chuckling again, and he wriggled under the weight of Draco's longer arms and fingers, like a Crup puppy instead of a Kneazle. "Yeah, yeah—that's all I do see, these days. Your ugly mug, git, everywhere I look. Bloody Malfoy," he said, teasing. He was giddy, mercurial when finally met with understanding. No one had bothered with that before Malfoy did. They saw what they saw, and it was not always Harry. "Getting a little tired of that same old, same old hairstyle, I am. Grow it long, why don't you? I want to play with it. Braid it, maybe."

"Pouf," Draco growled, willing to play. "I'll shave yours off; see how you like it then, baldy."

"Can't," Harry taunted. "My hair has a mind of its own. Won't let you. More powerful than anything, my hair. Could've used it against—against—"

"More powerful than your brain, prat," Draco poked his nose mock-belligerently into Harry's debated hair, seeking the hidden whorls of ear, seeking to distract Harry from where his thoughts had wandered. Besides, he loved Harry's ears with a fine, pure passion. So delicate, they, and the lobes like overripe fruit, sweet and dainty when he suckled them. He did this even as he thought of it and Harry's shifting skin grew hotter all over, flushing in the dim light.

"Again?" Harry asked, when he could unclench his teeth. Ears drove him into fits of pinch-faced desire. Draco felt his cock pulsate where it lay against his stretched thigh—he grinned at it, grinned at Harry, turning blindly. "Malfoy?" His voice was thin and strained.

"Again."

Draco gave him salvation, and took his own.

_-o0o-_

_The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley, London, December, 1999_

"Not your best idea ever, Potter."

"No?" Harry turned from the window, his eyes meditative. Draco watched him carefully.

"Don't you think it will fly over as well as a lead balloon, Potter?" he asked, a supercilious lilt in his voice that he knew from experience Harry detested. "That the  _Prophet_  won't be all over it, flies on shite, and to both our detriments? There are easier ways of doing this, you know. Not everything must be instantly cast as an epic confrontation."

"Yeah?" Harry cocked his head at him; strolled closer. "And we have to start somewhere, Malfoy. Might as well be here and it might as well be Christmas shopping, and, if they don't like it, they can bloody pound sand. Supposed to be a season of goodwill toward all men, remember? Don't think for a moment I won't remind them of that, if need be."

Draco huffed, turned away.

"You saw Tom's face, Potter—and he's fond of you—"

"They're all fond of me, Draco," Harry smirked. "This will make them sit up and take notice, that's all.  _Fond_  doesn't confer rights over my personal life."

"And your personal life is just that, Potter," Draco spat back, "personal! As is mine! And, you know,  _I_  don't need this. I don't want it—all the nine day's wonder of it focused on me, and _my_  life and  _my_ business. Andy and Mum and Teddy don't need it either. Leave well enough alone, Potter—for once in your life."

Harry spun away, back to the window. He peered out in the short dusk, watching lights flicker on all up and down Diagon. Shoppers abounded, undeterred by the frost in the air, the crowds.

"That's just it, Draco," he muttered. "It's not 'well enough'—far from it. And it needs to be dealt with now, not later, after they've all had the chance to settle in and get comfortable. It needs light and air, Draco, if it's going to heal—if I am."

He turned his head sharply, presenting his profile.

"Or perhaps that's not part of your agenda in re-establishing yourself and the family Malfoy? Perhaps this is just a little something in passing—keep your cock occupied and happy whilst you slog through NEWTS?"

"Fuck you, Harry!" Draco was on him, already punching. They went down in a flurry of fists and huffing, furious insults, till Draco finally got his mouth over Potter's filthy still-pouring stream of garbled invective and silenced it.

"Shut it—shut it, Harry!" he ordered, nipping sharp. "Don't fucking say shite like that! I've not stuck by you for this long to be accused like that, you bastard! Of course you're on my agenda—you fucking  _are_ my agenda, Harry! Don't you know that by now?" he demanded.

"Draco—"

"Speccy head's up your fucking arse all the fucking time, that's what! Don't know what you're on about, you nit; don't even know what you're saying to me—to my face! Merlin, Harry, you're a bloody  _bastard_ , you are—I don't fucking  _deserve_ that! Take it back!"

"Draco, Draco," Harry was snogging him dementedly, all over his flushed, fury-taut face, his still-too-tight mouth. "Draco, no—stop, please. I'm sorry, _sorry_ , alright? Just stop— _stop_!"

"You stop, Potter!" Not in the slightest appeased, Draco stared at him furiously, noting the brand-new black eye and the thin trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. "Stop fucking ruining it by shoving it in everyone's faces! I've waited this long, Harry, and I can damned well wait a while longer, alright?"

"But—"

" _No_  buts, Harry," Draco snapped back. "Don't you see what they'll do? We'll be pilloried, Harry; it's too soon—too fresh. You need to just get on with it quietly—maybe even go out of the country—and let others fight that battle for a while. It doesn't have to be  _you_ , Harry. There's enough godsdamned hate crimes already, Harry—you don't think one of those crazies isn't a nutter enough not to try and take the Saviour out just for being a poufter? Because there's one out there, Harry. There's always one, just like there's always some stupid super-villain in the making. And they don't care who they kill or how messy it is—they just want to make a statement. They won't care if it's  _you_ , Harry, and  _I_  do.  _I_  do, damn it!"

"Draco?"

Draco's face was wet. He tasted salt and it wasn't just the blood from Harry's split lip. It was the tears he'd shed if Harry lost. If some brain-bollixed basketcase caught him at a bad moment and killed him, because it  _could_  bloody well happen. It didn't take a damned Dark Lord—no one was safe from bloody zealotry.

"Gibraltar, Harry," he offered up, his voice reedy, tumbling out in a steady stream that built and built, till it overwhelmed and carried away all objections before it, in the exact same way the winter melt fed the freshets, joining streams and rivers, to the ocean wide. "S'got a decent uni and they could give a Crup's arse there what or who you sleep with, as long as you're not hurting anyone. Or wherever else there's some sort of  _real_ culture, Harry—some set of people who haven't got wild hairs up their arses about who you're shagging and whether it's male or female or a bloody hippogriff! Switzerland, perhaps; I'll look into it—I just need a decent Arithromancy programme, that's all, and  _you_  need Potions, Harry. We'll find one, trust me—a good one. One that will work for both of us, I promise.  _I promise_."

"Draco," Harry nuzzled his head into Draco's shoulder comfortably. "Draco." And it was benediction and forgiveness and agreement, all in one.

And Draco knew he'd kept Potter safe again, somehow. He tightened his hold in gratitude and they rocked—they rocked, ever so gently, and let the gale subside.

_-o0o-_

_Hogwarts, May 1st, 2000_

_In fire, in green wood,_

_In wode and the juice of sloe plum_

_In spark, and the points of Herne's antlers_

_In blood, bone and tooth—in_ _**fire** _ _!_

_In fire, in felled limb_

_In clay, white as snow, and peat bog_

_In spark, and the bay of HellHounds trailing_

_In fire—blood, tooth and_ _**bone** _ _!_

And so went the refrain, repeating to the beat of a slow drum. On the fifth—or perhaps the fifteenth; Harry had lost count by then—the agonized, eerie wail of bagpipes joined it, and yet more dancers came.

They were farmers, herders, and neighbors in Hogsmeade; they were professors and the Ministry's Forestry Wizards. They were Gypsies, come for this one night only, their ragtag caravans bright in the moonlight, all their cracked and chipping paint just as new.

They were students—Eighth Years, and some Seventh, ripe at ages seventeen, eighteen and even twenty—all for Beltane, at last. No more children's crackers and scattered sweets from the Green Man, they. It was full wonder that was true Beltane for them, at the last.

Mead flowed, warmed by the fires, of which there were Three. Elfin wine was to be had by the skin and the cask, and there were pointy ears to be glimpsed among the company. Centaurs and Wizards, Witches and ghosts cavorting in waver, uneven circles, hands in the air, clapping—and was that not the former Headmaster there, robes twirling, his heels high and merry?

All gathered; toasting, feasting, dancing—singing, laughing, till the laughter died away with the flying vermillion cinders and drunken gasps and giggles followed, blessed under the viridian boughs of the Lady and the Hunter—and the Hunt stayed to drink to the sighs of lovers hidden in bowers, and the ever-patient elders, keeping watch by the Three. Feeding it.

"To the Fires," roared a great antlered man, and all the Three burnt high—higher, tall spires of flame green, blue and white, dwarfing the Hogwarts towers in the smoky distance. "May they burn yet ever bright for the Realm!"

"To the Fires! To the Fires!" echoed the company—and it was so, all across the crisscrossing lines of ancient territories, salted and primed with the blood of Saxons and Romans, Visigoths and knights of yore, Roundheads and cassocked pious gentlemen. All mingled, all mixed, all ash and dust now.

All soil—fertile soil; the womb of Gaia and virginal Persephone, renewed with fire. Drenched with wine and cum.

"Fire!" they catcalled, and virgins trembled—first kiss, first grope, first tumble. "FIRE!" they hooted and whistled and familiar lovers exchanged knowing glances in the long, silky grasses of the lea—and so much more.

_**FIRE!** _

Harry and Draco stumbled into the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest sometime after two a.m., drunk as houses and snorting with laughter as they tore off robes and half-masks—smeared wode and kisses across heated skin. Nearly fell into the tiny stream that ran there; landed on the moss bed only by good fortune.

"Fuck me, fuck me till I can't breathe—kill me with you," Harry heard, and fumbled his wand into doing what he wanted—no clothes; something oily, please and thank you!—and then silenced his lover's pleading as only he knew how.

_-o0o-_

_Malfoy Manor, April, 2000_

"You'll both be attending, then, Draco?" Narcissa enquired. She'd one eye on Teddy's antics all the while; Draco had grown used to receiving only a part of his mother's attention—there were so many more people in her life now, it seemed, despite the war's gruesome death toll.

He didn't mind it, not at all. Her heart was open to Harry and that was all that mattered to him. The git had found Narcissa's sole Horcrux, in a way, though perhaps that was a strange view of it, Draco allowed. But he was allowed his eccentricities, as a Malfoy. And his mother did love him. Loved them both, really.

He nodded, his expression calm and untroubled. "I think likely we'll both be accepted, yes. Term starts in August, but we'll need quarters."

"Not at the uni, though?" His mum raised a brow, silently decrying blocks of flats on general principle. Draco hid his smile. Sometimes the sounds of others living their lives—like bees in a massive hive—was a comfort, but no. He and Harry would find a location a little more private, he was certain.

Privacy would be a comfort, too. It grew wearing, watching Harry's life being constantly invaded. He did his best to be a bulwark—his reputation for being a charming bastard was very helpful, there—but still. The less attention paid to Harry right now, the better. He'd be healthier for it.

"I'll transfer the funds, darling. Your father had established a vault, of course, when you were born."

"Thank you, Mother," Draco smiled. The prospective housing had just edged up a notch in location and quality. "That's very thoughtful of you—and Father, too, of course." Draco nodded, closing his eyes and sending a silent bow to his now-deceased  _pater_ , residing in whichever incarnation of Heaven, Hell or Limbo he might be consigned to at the moment. Draco hoped for a Buddhist spin, but had no interest in having Father as a reincarnated close relative. Last thing he or Harry would ever need—Lucius Malfoy cast up by the vengeful Fates as a prospective son or daughter—but that was the cart seven leagues or more before the horse.

He shuddered in passing horror, though, and discreetly sketched the sign against foul machinations of fate and fortune, just in case.

"And Harry—does  _he_ need anything?" Narcissa continued, her voice delicate as the enquiring brow she arched. "Because of course there's more than Galleons enough, darling—"

"Mum," Draco stopped her with another smile—a very warm one this time, that had his eyes glittering bright and soft in the late afternoon light. "It's alright. He's well-off, Harry is. Might even have a leg up on _our_  Galleons, after Reparations."

"Oh," Narcissa grinned—grinned! (She did that now, all due to young Ted, Draco exulted)—into her teacup. "I'm glad, love. Such a sweet boy, Harry. He deserves only the best."

"Yes, Mum," Draco could only agree, because he truly was sweet, the cocky, irrepressible runt, and Draco was the audience of one, who tasted honey daily. "I'll tell him you said so," he added, merely to tease. Mum grinning like the famed Cheshire was such an awesome sight, especially for Draco, used to years of her demure, sedate glints of rare amusement. He reveled in it, as he reveled in Teddy's sticky fingerprints all over Father's study.

"Oh, don't! Draco, really!" Narcissa exclaimed, rising to track that selfsame Teddy's progress 'round a whatnot table heaped with china shepherdesses. " _No_ , darling, don't touch!" she scolded, a little more loudly, and the Lupin cub promptly drew his grubby little paw back, just in time. A figurine trembled, priceless crook aquiver, and recovered herself with a painted scowl.

"Good sweetiekins," she purred, scooping the little boy up handily, and shoving her fragile teacup at Draco simultaneously. "Who's the very good boy, then?" She pawed over him, checking for damage and stray small bits-and-pieces he could swallow; a lioness snuffling possessively over her adopted young.

"Grananhhha! Grummm!" Teddy squealed and giggled and then proceeded to drool toothily, his way of expressing love at this stage. Draco snorted in amused resignation, and gave up on pursuing his mother's actual attention: it was so clearly otherwise occupied.

But he didn't mind—not in the slightest. It would be best for Mother to have Teddy and Aunt Andy with her and not to have the slightest need for concern over her terribly press-worthy and publicly reformed Death Eater son. Best all around, for the lot of them.

He, too, could use a surcease in the relentless publicity. It wasn't pleasant, being branded various rude names simply because he was sometimes seen in Potter's company. Excellent to know his mum approved of the plan to vacate.

Too, though it galled the Weasel and the Granger no end, even they agreed Harry'd be better off outside the shores of bonny England for a time. There'd be nothing to prevent Draco from carrying his Potter away with him, come summer's end.

Not a single, bloody thing.

_-o0o-_

_Hogwarts, mid-June, 2000_

"I can't fucking well believe it," Ron sighed, folding his arms. "You're really doing this, mate, aren't you?"

"Yeah, Ron," Harry glared at him suspiciously, looking a bit tense 'round the shoulders. "I really am."

Draco crowded closer, without realizing it, until Harry nudged him out of the way, reaching 'round the jut of his hip for one the huge bags of Honeyduke's treasures he and his fellow Gryffindors had scarfed up the day before, on a final visit.

_Sentimental claptrap_ , Draco sneered (though he'd secretly placed an order for a year's supply of lollies whilst Potter wasn't looking) at the time. Potter had scoffed...and proceeded to practically buy out the shop.

" _We_  are," he added, merely to annoy, and raised his chin at the Weasel. Granger giggled.

"You two," she laughed, and hugged Harry, her elbows budging him further out on the edge of the circle. "You're priceless."

Harry smiled—slow, as if he didn't want to. He cocked a wary eye at the ginger bulk who was taking up Draco's rightful space. Who sighed yet again, loudly, and shrugged yet again.

"Well, alright—if that's how it is," Ron puffed out his cheeks and shuffled himself into the mini-group hug Harry and the Brain had going. "I suppose…"

"Yes, Ron," Harry prompted, the tiniest of edges still to his voice. "You suppose?"

"I can deal."

"I certainly hope so, Ron!" Granger attempted to be stern; failed miserably—all three of them laughing uproariously; Harry gasping 'Thanks so much, Father Ron!' and even Draco— _even Draco_ —

Pulled into Harry's orbit, though it was much against his dignity—hauled there by the arm that snaked out-to send him tripping and fumbling over the heap of freckled arms akimbo and shuffling feminine and masculine feet, as they  _all_ stumbled about like bloody fools on the Hogsmeade platform: a snorting, breathless muddle of feckless youth—pulled in, inescapably.

Like gravity.


End file.
